Sunday, November 9, 2008

I've been playing around with web cameras. I've been having trouble with the one on the front window but I think today I finally got it figured out. The above snapshot shows me standing in the driveway looking at my iPhone. I'm looking at the same shot you see above. How's that for recursion?

Initially I hooked up two web cams. The first was an old D-Link DCS-900w that had been pretty beat up. The other was a new Airlink 500w with night vision. The old one seems to be broken in a weird way. It works when connected by Ethernet, but the WiFi connection just won't work. I also noticed that the garage door opener wouldn't work while this camera was plugged in. I did a few tests and confirmed that the camera was interfering. My theory is that the D-Link is spewing some pretty nasty radio frequency noise. Of course, it was also interfering with the WiFi connection for my new camera too.

Now that the D-Link has been put out to pasture, my new Airlink is working well. Hopefully it will keep working. I'm hoping to catch some wildlife in the front yard.